$100 Bonus For New Citibank Ultimate Savings Account

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Here’s a good promotion from Citibank if you are a brand new customer: You can get a $100 signup bonus for opening a Citibank Ultimate Savings account that pay 4.65% APY with no minimum balance requirements.

To qualify for this offer you must apply for and open a new Ultimate Savings Account by 08/31/2007. $100 will be credited to your Ultimate Savings Account within 90 days from the end of the statement period in which your account was opened. Account must be in good standing at the time of the $100 credit.

Keep in mind that Citibank has historically always done a hard credit pull for new bank applicants (for no good reason). Thanks to Vijay and Sharon for the tip.

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Comments

You have got to be kidding me. I opened up one of these account not even a week ago and got a $25 opening bonus (which I am still waiting on). Now it is $100! Argh, I am going to call them and see if I can get this deal. Thanks for the update Johnny!

“Persons who currently have or at any time have had a deposit account at Citibank (or any of its predecessor banks) are not eligible.”

I think we *might* have had a Citibank checking account when we lived in Kansas City 8-9 years ago. Now we’re in Indiana, and our only tie to Citi is a credit card. According to their terms, we’re not eligible. But would they remember us? What do you think?

I could not get the link for this offer to work. It opens up a blank page in my internet browser (Safari). Is the offer still available? I went to Citi site and was able to find an offer for $50 sign-on bonus but not the $100 offer mentioned in this post. Can you re-post the link?

I had a checking account with them 3 years ago, I’m going to try for this even though it states ?Persons who currently have or at any time have had a deposit account at Citibank (or any of its predecessor banks) are not eligible.?
Since there is no minimum balance, I can just open and keep a $1 in there, if the bonus comes it comes, if it doesn’t, it doesn’t.

Michael: no, almost certainly not – I’ve never heard of a citi letting you “upgrade” to a better offer. sorry pal 🙁

Rick: citi’s network is global, they WILL know you had a checking account before because with this offer you get the whole 9 background check (including a hard credit pull), the question is whether the specific citi rep who yays or nays your account will care (it’s surprising how often reps don’t care about nuances like this) – the only way to find out is to apply – worst case you don’t get the offer, get the new account, and get a credit check – is that a big deal for you? (shouldn’t be if you aren’t getting a mortgage or something)

eric: yea, thumbs up for citi’s great offers and them being a pretty great bank in general, but the credit pull is definitely a downside

This may vary, but I would warn people that it might be quite a wait before they see that $100. I opened this account last time they were doing the $100 promotion (May, I think) and have yet to see the $100 in my account. They say it will happen within 90 days of opening the account, so I marked that date on my calendar and won’t bug them until then… but that date is in August, so I’m getting pretty close.

A similar thing happened when I opened an Etrade savings account for the $25 bonus – it wasn’t in there within the 30 days they promised, so I emailed them, and THEN they credited me. I encourage everyone to mark the date that it should be in the account by, and remember to email them if the bonus doesn’t show!

citibank plays a dirty game with this type of offers. 11 months ago me and my wife signed up for their offer of free air ticket if 1500 is deposited and direct deposit is initiated. They played dumb pretending not to receive our signature cards, then finally announced that signature cards are received and there’d be no problem with the promotion fulfilment. After 6 billing periods gave them a call and was told that my wife account is ineligible because of the missed deadline, and i should be receiving a ticket. That was 6 months ago. Still waiting… The morale is: Would not recommend giving them a cent.
Waisted effort and brain cells.

compared to what? international (and possibly unstable) savings accounts? CDs where your money is locked down and nontransferrable? the stock market (haha)?

4.65% is a solid rate of return on money that you can move in and out at will – what were you expecting? I figure at least 50-60% of people don’t put enough money in these accounts/leave it in there long enough for the bank to make a load of money off those, so with it only making money on 40-50% of the accounts, the rest don’t really deserve better than a 4.65% rate of return.

I would not recommend messing around with this. My experience in attempting to wrangle an account bonus from Citibank was similar to Albrecht’s (see comment above). Citibank claimed that they couldn’t verify my identity and closed my account without any warning – no phone call, no nothing, causing my $1500 opening deposit to be tied up while they issued me a paper check and causing my direct deposit from my employer to bounce. This is a really long story, actually, and involved me making a number of calls to customer service – the representatives blatantly lied to me, made absurd claims, failed to call me back, etc. etc. I have read other comments online from people who have had similar experiences. I don’t have the energy to retype my experience right now, so suffice it to say that I would absolutely not recommend wasting your time trying to get account bonuses from Citibank. I continue to hold Citibank credit cards and have not had any problems with them, but I will never open any kind of checking or savings account with Citibank ever again.

john: the ultimate savings account apparently only doesn’t charge “* When held as a stand-alone account.” it doesn’t say anything about bill payments, so it looks like you would get charged a fee of some sort if you had this plus other citi accounts.

I have to agree with Ross on this one. Considering that WAMU, HSBC, and Emigrant are offering at least 5%….and (for the more adventurous, perhaps) FNBO is offering 6.0, 4.65% with a hard pull is pretty lousy. I haven’t had good experiences with Citibank so maybe I’m biased, but to each his own.

Hi Jonathan,
Thanks a lot of your blogs on the money matters, it did help me a lot as i started consolidating and knowing where to start from to take control of my expenses and saving for future.

Do you know about iGoBanking, they are offering 5.30% and no minimum requirements what so ever? I’m planing to put my emergency money in this account, any feedback and thoughts you might have will be really helpful to me in making my decision.

4.65% isn’t the highest interest rate, but for some people the convenience and the “brand name” of Citibank is worth it. To each their own. I don’t have any Citibanks near me, so I use a WaMu and FNBO combo instead.

Although I do participate in some bank referral programs, I don’t get a penny if you open this Citibank savings account. I just thought it was a especially good sign-up bonus and figured I’d give people a heads up.

I would sign up for this myself, but I had a Citibank checking account a few years ago already. I got my bonus, but don’t know how they are now. Thanks to all the readers who shared their experiences.

jonathan, i was looking over the information for the account and it appears the cut off date for the promotion is july 31, 2007 and not august 31, 2007 as your post indicates. perhaps there was a change, i am not certain, but i just wanted to let you and everyone else who may be interested know of the “correct” date.

FYI, for current citibank checking customers considering getting the ultimate money account or ultimate savings account (no $100, but they are still good accounts to have) – here are the fee details:

Ultimate Money:

must pay 2 bills per month from your checking account or your rate drops from 5%->4.5% (not permanently) – there are NO FEES with this ultimate money account EVER, the worst is your rate temporarily drops

Ultimate Savings:

must pay 2 bills, have direct deposit, or minimum balance in the attached checking or you get fees. looks like in the long run the ultimate money is better…

that is something i was wondering as well. i would guess it would count as a cash advance, which is something i am looking to avoid. i suppose i do not have any real basis for my thinking, but that is my guess.

these sign up bonuses seem almost too good. is there a minimum time that you have to keep the account open? or do they make it a hassle for you to close the account? personally i think the wamu combo is more enticing for my needs, but i can’t pass up 100 bucks.

sorry, i just meant the wamu checking/savings account combo. theres no deal, just a good apy. i like the fact that you can instantly transfer funds to a paper checking account with no waiting period. i don’t know of any other set up like that…

Rob, That wamu combo is Great! it is one of the best set ups on the web. To be able to transfer that quickly from a 5% yield to checking/atm is really nice. Thanks to Johnathan for all these great deals being published!!!

I saw reference to FNBO Direct bank and decided to check it out. It is offerring 6% interest rate but that seems like a promotional rate. What has been everyone’s experince with FNBO Direct? Is it safe? Its website says its FDIC insured, but FDIC as we all know is a vastly underfunded agency.

“sorry, i just meant the wamu checking/savings account combo. theres no deal, just a good apy. i like the fact that you can instantly transfer funds to a paper checking account with no waiting period. i don?t know of any other set up like that?”

well, citibank lets you do that (INSTANT transfer from savings to checking and vice versa), and the ultimate money account has a 5.00 apy right.

Last time I checked, they issue you paper checks to go with your EZ checking account – and since you can go online and instantly transfer money from your savings to your checking, technically, the money is instantly available for you to write a paper check from.

It clearly states that “No monthly maintenance fees apply when held as a stand-alone account in a Citibank Account relationship package.”

So apparently in order to get the advertised “No monthly maintenance fees” you must open an Ultimate Savings account in one of the following qualifying relationship packages: Citibank? EZ Checking, Citibank Account, Citibank Everything Counts? or Citigold? Account relationship package.

To the best of my layman knowledge, First National Bank of Omaha is a solid bank. It’s been around for 150 years. I know one of their 7500 employees and have visited he at work at their 40+ story skyscaper (which seems impressive in OMAHA!). They are not a huge bank with only 18 billion in ‘managed assets’ and deposits of 5.6 million. The FDIC provides an “institution directory” with more facts/figures:

Credit card companies and banks have always been able to do “soft” credit pulls in order to direct pre-approved and other promotional offers to you, without the need for a “hard” pull. Such a pull is supposed to designate a request for credit, which according to the FICO model reduces your creditworthiness.

I applied for opening the account on july 9th and till today the account is not yet activated. I have tried calling them twice per week and still have not managed to open the account. The CS is bad and i never knew how difficult it could be to open an account with such a reputed bank.

I just tried opening an account through the $100 link posted by Robert above, but now the website is saying that the offer code (CYMJ) isn’t valid, but the code for the $50 bonus (CSLN) does work. Maybe they have changed the offer, even though they said the offer is valid through 8/31? Unfortunately I don’t have the time to further explore this . . . it’s a little annoying! Thanks regardless, for letting us know about these offers.

Does anyone have a screen shot of the $100 offer with an 8/31/07 expiration. The $100 offer shows an expiration date of 5/31/07. The $50 offer is good until 8/31/07. Is this correct or did they change the offering?

I have opened this account and I am wondering if I am supposed to get checks with it. I called their customer service and it is obviously outsourced and communication is difficult at best. However, we have Citibank locations within relatively close proximity so I may make a deposit there and inquire. I have been happy with Citibank insofar as credit cards go, they have always been fair. I do not want to pay for checks and really do not need them, but I thought there was some mention during the opening process of checks being sent out. May be Jonathon would know. I really appreciate all the great information he puts out on this site.

The 100 dollar link posted by Robert no longer works (nor does the original posted by Jonathan).

In regards to someone asking if anyone screenshotted the original offer… I doubt it would matter as the current 50 dollar offer has this constraint on it:
“Offer may be modified or withdrawn at anytime without notice and is not transferable.”

Anyway, Jonathan’s original link does appear to work for 50 bucks. It is up to you whether or not a hard pull is worth it.

However, if you go to open an account using Jonathan’s link (Promotion Code: CSLN) you will find this in section 2 of the Terms and Disclosures… (for those of you who don’t want to skim, it still says you get 100 dollars – and as far as I’m concerned, the disclosure agreement is final – no?)

II. Promotion Disclosure

PROMOTION DISCLOSURE

Promotion Code: CSLN

When you applied for your Ultimate Savings Account, you identified the special offer code of CSLN to receive a $100 bonus. Below are the terms and conditions that you must meet in order to obtain the benefits of this special offer.

Terms and Conditions:

? To receive this offer you must apply for and open a new Ultimate Savings Account by 08/31/2007. $100 will be credited to your Ultimate Savings Account within 90 days following your first statement cycle. Account must be in good standing at the time of the $100 credit.

? All accounts are subject to approval. Customer must be a citizen or resident alien of the United States (U.S.) with a valid U.S. taxpayer identification number. The amount of any bonus payment will be reported to the IRS as interest earned in the year credited. Persons under 18 years of age are not eligible. Offer may be modified or withdrawn at any time without notice and is not transferable.

I just got the following pop up notice when trying to apply for the $100 bonus:

You have entered offer code

CSLN

By clicking the area below, you acknowledge and agree that this bonus offer is not transferable and that if you did not receive the offer code listed above in a communication directly from Citibank you are not eligible for this bonus offer.”

Interestingly enough, if you follow Jonathan’s link to the Citibank site, there is a place to click on “email to a friend” and then Citibank would send the code to that friend. Why couldn’t the friend be yourself, and then you have definitely received a communication directly from Citibank.

Tired of this big bank.
The chronology of this account opening experience has left me wondering if this online banks are worth any pain? I applied to open the account on July 9th, faxed them the documents on 13th july, received the (un)welcome kit on July 20th. I have been calling the CS every other day and then on July 31st was told that my account will be activated when somebody will call me with security code. Gods knows when that will happen. Going to call Citi today to cancel the account. In short, its not worth to waste time and effort to earn the 100$(mirage). So please when you call CS ask them when will they activate your account.

In my experience, if you have a Citibank branch near you then go talk to someone with a desk(not a teller). When I applied I had the worst customer service possible. I had a ?block? on my account and was given phone numbers of someone that could ?easily? help me…these numbers always lead back to the original number I had called. I even tried to cancel the application or close my account after only recently applied and that was not possible. Anyways, I walked into my local branch and the teller was nice but clueless. I then talked to a manager who sat down with me and called some magic number and all my troubles were taken care of.

hi. i finally have my account # and all for this. but i’m wondering… do i need to deposit anyhting or set up any direct deposits in order to receive the benjamin? sorry – i can’t quite remember right now and i’m a bit tipsy, but i just got my mail. and, when i tried reading the description again it seems like you just open it? but that doesn’t quite make sense to me.

I opened my Citibank Ultimate Savings Account one month ago for the $100 dollar bonus. Here are my impressions:

1. The customer service is TERRIBLE. They are outsourced to a foreign country, they couldn’t answer simple questions, and they even lied to me. There is absolutely no way that I’m keeping this account after I get the bonus.

2. The account opening process is SLOW. It took about half a month before I could even access my account online to confirm that my initial deposit was indeed there.

3. (This one is minor, but annoying) Many parts of their website don’t work Firefox. Why on earth are there still websites designed exclusively for Internet Explorer?

4. The paperwork for the account isn’t clear about this, but you do not get checks with the account.

5. There is no monthly fee if it is the only Citibank account you have.

6. I’ve recently received my first statement, so I hope to get the $100 bonus soon. And I better get $100 and not the $50 that the link in the article now promises. The $100 bonus is explicitly printed in the “Account Disclosures and Agreement” associated with my account and was confirmed by a customer service representative shortly after I opened the account. However, I wouldn’t be surprised if Citibank tried to pull a fast one and only gives me $50, so I must be ready to fight them for it.

Overall it is quite a hassle, but it will be worth the $100 if/when I get it. I’ll let you know if/when I receive the bonus.

Has anyone received the bonus from this offer yet?

Also, does anyone know what the terms are for closing the account? Is there a minimum time period or fee associated with closing?

Phillip:
You fund the Ultimate Savings Account from an external account when you open it. I opened my account with $20, but you could probably do it with just $1 and still meet the bonus requirements. Here is the promotion disclosure:

PROMOTION DISCLOSURE
Promotion Code: CSLN
When you applied for your Ultimate Savings Account, you identified the special offer code of CSLN to receive a $100 bonus. Below
are the terms and conditions that you must meet in order to obtain the benefits of this special offer.
Terms and Conditions:
? To receive this offer you must apply for and open a new Ultimate Savings Account by 08/31/2007. $100 will be credited to your
Ultimate Savings Account within 90 days following your first statement cycle. Account must be in good standing at the time of the $100
credit.
? All accounts are subject to approval. Customer must be a citizen or resident alien of the United States (U.S.) with a valid U.S.
taxpayer identification number. The amount of any bonus payment will be reported to the IRS as interest earned in the year credited.
Persons under 18 years of age are not eligible. Offer may be modified or withdrawn at any time without notice and is not transferable.

I just received my first Citibank statement in which they made the following statement: “Starting October 1, 2007 Citibank reserves the right to revoke waivers of fees and charges
that are not waived pursuant to your account terms and conditions.” Any idea of what that means? There is not supposed to be a monthly fee if this is a stand alone account. Now I’m not so sure that will continue…

Bill: Citibank’s promotion page clearly states in the fine print: “No monthly maintenance fees apply when held as a standalone
account in a Citibank Account relationship package.” So IDEALLY there would not be a monthly service fee.

I tried searching through Citbank’s jumble of terms, conditions, manuals, disclosures, etc to figure out what a fee might be and if it would apply. In one document there IS a $12.50 monthly fee applied to accounts with combined balances less than $6000. A call to their unhelpful customer service confirmed the fee.

Check out the fee listed here: link

The customer service representative had no explanation for the promotion page. Instead he wanted me to call back during business hours so they could connect me to an actual branch (There is no local branch in my area). I’ll call back next week.

I did have the CS rep confirm my promotion at $100. So I’m no longer worried about only getting half the promotion, now I’m worried about these misrepresented monthly fees.

In addition to all the trouble they have given me already, I can now add this “hidden fee” to my list of grievances. I know that the promotion page said there was no monthly fee when I signed up, and I know that it still says that. I know that I did not *see* a monthly fee mentioned in any of the paperwork when I signed up. I could have missed it though; I find their terms and conditions and such to be very difficult to find, navigate, and interpret.

The whole thing seems very shady. I didn’t expect this from such a big name in banking. One thing is for sure, I’ve already started warning my friends and family not to deal with Citibank. There are so much better banking options available.

I just called Citibank bank customer service again. The representative that I spoke with answered my questions without transferring my call to a local banch. After I explained my situation again, he said that there is indeed a monthly maintenance fee on Citibank accounts with balances less than $6000.
Then, after I pointed out that the promotional page says “No monthly fees”, he assured me that if I was going to be charged a $12.50 maintenance fee for having an account balance less than $6000 that I would have already seen it on my statement. (I did not have the monthly maintenance fee on my last statement; I was worried it would appear on my next statement.) He also said that the warning in my last statement saying “Starting October 1, 2007 Citibank reserves the right to revoke waivers of fees and charges that are not waived pursuant to your account terms and conditions.” would not introduce the fee. At the moment his answer seemed satisfactory.
However after the call to Citibank I found this in the Citibank Online Marketplace Addendum: “Service charges assessed will appear as a charge on the statement you receive for the next monthly period.” This makes me think that the maintenance fee is delayed a month, contrary to what the CS rep said. So maybe I will be charged.
I’m not sure what I should do. Wait and see what happens, or call back again and probably get the run around?

I finally called Citibank and was told that the statement ?Starting October 1, 2007 Citibank reserves the right to revoke waivers of fees and charges that are not waived pursuant to your account terms and conditions? is a notification only, and that if any fees were going to be assessed [in other words, if they changed their fee policy], I would be advised of that beforehand. For right now, I’m remembering the footnote #5 on their pricing packages page: “Fees for The Citibank Account are also waived if you have a stand-alone Ultimate Savings Account.”

I signed up on 7/11 and am waiting for the 90 day qualification. I am going to assume that I will have to email or call them to get the $100. Hopefully, It won’t take up too much of my time. It’s still an easy way to make $100 🙂
After I get the bonus, I will definitely transfer the money back to Emigrant. I’ve never had any problems with them……

I applied for this account in July and they closed my account on 09/07 due to my not sending in a home phone bill statement and utilities statement. They told me I cannot reopen the account, but would have to re-apply, and thus be ineligible for this offer.

Attempting this application is near impossible for students or anyone who is traveling and away from home.

Greg and Scott, I don’t think you can close the account right away. I recall vaguely (will have to look at my records, which I don’t have right now) that the account has to stay open for 90 days. Please post here if you are able to close the account without problems.

I called Citbank today to close my account. Ironicly, it was the most pain-free phone call to Citbank that I have experienced. The representative said that there was no early closing fee when done over the phone. I completed the entire process in one phone call; there was no need to mail confirmation.

You need to open it with $100 dollars to get the $100 “bonus”. That is what the small print says on the back. If you think you are going to open this with a dollar and get $100 dollars, I doubt it. Of course, i only noticed this after I thought I was getting a free hundred bucks.

Washington Mutual, after all these years, got me one more time! LOL. I hate that bank from back in my college days.

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